In November 1991, I woke in the night with the words "Yeovil 7,000 Rand" echoing in my mind. “Rand” is the South African currency, and 7,000 Rand is about £300. Those two words were loud and clear, but I had no idea why they were stuck in my head. As I went to the bathroom, I mumbled the words to myself, wondering what they could mean. They didn’t form part of a sentence, and I couldn’t recall having any related dreams. It was two random words that made no sense at all. I went back to bed, trying to forget it. But, I woke up with the same two words still swirling in my head.

 

For two weeks, I couldn’t shake them off. I was job hunting at that time. I thought God was pointing me to Yeoville, a suburb of Johannesburg, where I could earn 7,000 Rand a month. But, I realised this seemed far-fetched after a brief moment of reflection. There weren't many large businesses in Yeoville. Only individuals with exceptional qualifications earned that kind of salary.

A few weeks later, I returned home from work and collapsed onto the sofa. My eyes landed on an old encyclopaedia I had inherited from my father, and I felt compelled to look up “Yeovil.” Although it felt a bit silly to search for a small suburb of Johannesburg in an old encyclopaedia, I did it anyway.

To my shock, I discovered that they had indeed listed “Yeovil.” It referred to a town in Somerset, England. I gasped, and my heart started pounding. Tears welled up in my eyes. From that moment, I knew I was destined to go to Yeovil, in the country that had touched my heart a decade earlier. I kept this revelation to myself; I didn’t want anyone to laugh at me.